Rex met Elizabeth's gaze with a stillness that was more unsettling than any outburst of anger could have been. His eyes were hollowed out by exhaustion and something far colder—the calculation of a man who had already weighed lives on a scale and found most of them wanting.
"That is the question I am building the answer to," Rex said, his voice dropping to a register that felt like grinding gravel. "The answer I am engineering is as many as possible."
He leaned forward slightly, the lamplight catching the hard angles of his face. "You need to understand that 'as many as possible' is not the same as 'all of them,' Elizabeth."
"I will not lie to you with false hope."
"I am not promising salvation for every soul that steps through that threshold."
"I am promising survival for the species."
